The two climate researchers Kevin Noone and Paul Glantz, at the Department of Environmental Science, took a closer look at how the climate footprint differs between a digital and physical meeting.
“For every Zoom meeting or email we send, energy is used in a server hall somewhere in the world. The halls require energy because they constantly have to be cooled down with energy-intensive systems”, says Paul Glantz.
At the same time, Paul Glantz believes that the climate footprint for the two types of event can hardly be compared. A conference in Paris, where a participant chooses to fly back and forth means an emission of 300 kilos of carbon dioxide.
“In total, the meeting participant could participate in a conference that takes place via Zoom for 2,005 days to reach the same level of emissions as flying to a meeting in Paris”, says Paul Glantz.
The server used for Zoom in the Nordics is located in Denmark. Consequently, the figures used for the study are based on the carbon dioxide equivalents generated by Danish electricity production.
This is what the emissions would look like
This is what the climate footprint looks like if we compare a digital meeting with a flight to a conference (expressed in carbon dioxide equivalents, CO2-eq). The emissions are calculated for the use of Zoom in the Nordic region for a two-, three- and five-day meeting that lasts for eight hours per day.
|
|
Two-day meeting |
Three-day meeting |
Five-day meeting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zoom Meeting (Kilo CO2-eq) | 0.30 | 0.45 | 0.76 |
| Flight to Paris (Kilo CO2-eq) | 300.8 | 300.8 | 300.8 |
| Flight to New York (Kilo CO2-eq) | 546.8 | 546.8 | 546.8 |